How truecaller breach your privacy

Privacy Breach by Truecaller

How truecaller breach your privacy- You all must have heard about Truecaller. Many of us have been using this application to find out details about the numerous unknown number calls that we receive on our phones on a day to day basis. But is Truecaller app really worth this risk? Let us find out.

What is Truecaller? How truecaller works?

Before knowing about the privacy breaches through Truecaller, let us first know about the application. “What is Truecaller? How truecaller works?” Truecaller is an android and iOS application that is very commonly found on our smartphones. This application mainly provides us with details related to a particular mobile number. The details might include the name and tag that is related to that particular mobile number. But there is a very simple question. ‘How does truecaller name search work?‘. Let’s have a look.

How does truecaller name search work?

How does truecaller name search work?– Well, during the installation of the Truecaller application, it demands some permissions. These permissions include access to Camera, Contacts, microphones, Call logs, etc. Thus, using these permissions, the app collects the user’s data and stores it in the company data server. It does this for every user who is using this application. Whenever they get a username and mobile number, they store it in their server and then map it in their database. When someone searches the number, it fetches the data from there and displays it to the customer when they receive the calls. This is also helpful in sorting out spam calls as many users claim.

But is all this worth the risk that the application threatens to? You must be wondering as to what kind of risk does it cause?

Well, according to the Truecaller’s website, this application collects some information about the callers from their phones during installation. These permissions include access to personal information such as geolocation, IP address, device ID, SIM card usage, an application installed on the device, web browser, IMSI, connection information, access to contact book, device log and event messages, data of incoming and outgoing calls and many more. This simply means that using Truecaller, people could easily find out our call records, call recordings, contacts, and location.

How truecaller breach your privacy? Why is Truecaller dangerous?

Truecaller application has basically three revenues sources. The first source is from ads or advertisement that are shown on its website and app.

Truecaller works with the concept of crowdsourcing. This means that it keeps everyone’s data and provide users service from the data that is collected from the users.

The second method of revenue is through data sharing. The currencies across the globe are nothing when compared to the price of data in the market these days. This application sells out the collected data to its third-party websites and partners. From this data, they could find people through locations and profession (they have a tag feature to include the profession of the caller). We could even ask for a quotation from the company by mailing them for a particular person’s number which they would provide in exchange for some money. So, basically, Truecaller sells out all our data to the advertisers and third-party partners and websites on the cost of our privacy. The third revenue source is Truecaller for Business. Let us consider an example. A person has 100-150 numbers and people have listed many of them as spam calls. The person can register these numbers under business list in exchange for money and these numbers will be removed from the spam list.

Apart from the above, they also have a paid version of the app. In return of some money, they provide some premium features such as the users can see a list of people who have searched for their number in the truecaller’s server. The paid service would not contain ads as well.

Thus, Truecaller is storing up all our valuable data and information in return of simple features. This is a huge risk for smartphone users.

What is the solution to this issue?

The best way to ignore everything and protect ourselves is to
not use this application on our smartphones. If you love your privacy and don’t
want to leak any of the personal data, then it is best to not install this
application at all. But if you are not concerned about anything and you like
the things as they are, then you can continue using this application.

Another alternate way to use this application is to use it on the browser. You can open the applications official website on the browser and log in with a new/fresh email id. Then you can use this to check unknown numbers. This way, they would not be able to get access to personal data of the users and the data would be safe from being misused.